Back to Basics tent keeping it 'calypso pure'

Calypsonian, National Carnival Commission (NCC) chairman and head of Back to Basics Calypso Tent Winston “Gypsy” Peters wants to maintain Trinidad and Tobago being known as the land of calypso, pan and limbo.

That is why his tent, Back to Basics, is focused on keeping it as calypso pure as possible.

The tent was scheduled to open on February 16 but did not do so due to the nationwide blackout. The two shows were merged into one on February 17 for a performance at Queen’s Hall Garden Theatre, St Ann’s.

Gypsy described his tent as being “a real organised machinery.

“What we are having basically, we are having some vintage shows. Our two shows are going to be vintage,” he said.

“You will hear a new song in-between but it is basically vintage. Because we have so many potent calypsoes that have never been sung.”

The tent is focused on vintage because it is trying to “bring back people’s consciousness into the seriousness of calypso.”

Among the 12 performers are Austin “SuperBlue” Lyons, Terri Lyons, Aaron Duncan, Drupatee and Rex East.

Asked why he decided to do vintage as opposed to new songs, Peters said it was A Taste of Carnival and the tent was simply entertaining.

“It is a show and we want to entertain the people who are coming there. We don’t want to be encumbered by the atmosphere of competitive calypsoes.

“So we want to make it as entertaining as possible – which is some of the problem calypso tents are having – the entertainment part of it is gone. Everyone wants to sing something to get in the competition.

“So we are not going to be encumbered by that, at least this year,” he said.

During his performance of his 1980 hit Take The Number, Scrunter, at opening night of the Kaiso Karavan tent, said calypsoes like that aren’t made anymore.

When asked if he agreed with this, Gypsy said Scrunter might have been right. He said he believes that melodies for songs are not created anymore and when there are melodies, a riddim is created and a lot of people sing on the riddim.

“They cater more for party and not the sensitivity of the artform that is calypso, itself,” he said.

Gypsy said a lot of what is deemed to be calypso or soca today is not that at all.

“It is unidentifiable, you don’t know what it is. Because it either highlights music out of Africa or Zouk music out of Dominica and Guadeloupe and all of that.

“They make an amalgam of all of that and calling it soca music and some of them even sing with a different accent,” he said.

Gypsy said he did not know where calypso is going and that some entertainers did not identify as calypsonians anymore. He said many artistes referred to themselves as soca singers.

Under these circumstances, he was working to ensure that his tent was as calypso pure as it could be.

He said TT, at the end of the day, was the land of calypso, pan and limbo and he never wants that to change.

Asked what can be done to rectify this and if enhancing music literacy was a possible solution, Gypsy said he was not trying to rectify it and the majority of calypsonians of yesteryear did not how to read or write music, at all.

“But they had that musical intuition that gave them the impetus to write the kinds of songs that they wrote.

“All of the international calypsoes that were written, a lot of the singers knew nothing about formal music or anything like that,” he said.

He said many of the soca singers also were not music literate but tried to imitate everyone else. Gypsy said the calypsonians of long ago did not try to imitate anyone as there was no one to imitate and this fostered their creativity.

However, he made it clear he was not against anyone changing things to whatever they want it to be.

“Every generation would change the world to suit themselves. I have nothing against that. I live at a particular time and that particular time I am still – in a lot of ways not stuck in that time – but I am glad that I knew it because that gave me my moorings to do what it is I am doing.”

Gypsy said he was making a statement of fact about the "unidentifiability" of what new artistes were singing.

“If that works for them, I am fine.

“Long ago calypsonians created their own identity. That is what they did. Now people don’t have time with that. You sing whatever you want; you say it however you feel. Like the other person and that is it. But that is what they want and I have nothing against that,” he said.

Gypsy says he chooses performers who identifies with calypso for his tent and that was why reigning calypso monarch Terri Lyons and Aaron Duncan were a part of the tent.

TT is the land of calypso and it is not even promoted as that anymore while other countries like Jamaica proudly promotes their indigenous music, he added. Calypso is the one thing TT is recognised for the world over, he said. He does not want a calypso tent to change.

“I want a calypso tent to be exactly that. We are not singing under some bamboo shed or anything anymore. That has long been discarded but I want it to be a tent. This is part of our cultural experience.”

Saying that some things are worth enhancing but not changing, Gypsy said he wants calypso tents to remain just that with very little improvements to make it be better.

“When tourists come, they must want to come to a calypso tent.”

He said there will be questions about how a tent came about and how it got its name. These things should be documented and published, he said.

Tents have a glorious history and it is this history Gypsy sees as generating and developing heritage tourism.